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Page 447
447 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Tip
xii. 40, " The sojourning of the children of Israel in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan was 430 years." This reduces the sojourn in Egypt from 430 to 215 years, which is exactly equal to the sojourn in Canaan, and this was, as shown above, 25 + 60 -I- 130 years. It is quite evident that this can not be genuine chronology based on ancient data, for it is highly improbable, to say the least, that the sojourns in Canaan and in Egypt should be of exactly the same duration. These figures are the result of computation and reckoning, not the result of exact records. But, in the second place, there are no data for locating the exodus chronologically in the book of Exodus or Numbers. To find its date according to the priestly compilers and computators it is necessary to come farther down in the Biblical books.
The passage used for this purpose by Archbishop Ussher is found in I Kings vi. 1 as follows: " And 8. Ussher's it came to pass in the four hundred and
Basis. eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, . . that he began to build the house of Jehovah." This passage, far from easing the dif ficulties, simply increases them. In the first place the number 480 seems to be nothing else than a computation made by the writer of books of Kings who, about the beginning of the exile, compiled books with the object of presenting a complete chronology of Israel's historical life. There are a good many appearances of " forty " in the work of chronologists like him, for example in Judges, and it is probable that the number forty is either a round number or more likely the computed length of a generation. On this latter supposition 480 would mean twelve generations, a suggestion which finds support, if not confirmation, in the list of names with which he was operating, namely Moses (in the wil derness), Joshua, Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, Eli, Samuel, Saul, and David. His method would seem to be plain. He computes twelve generations between the exodus and the Temple, and then simply translates these into 480 years. But even if it be assumed that the 480 was an exact number, the goal would still be no nearer, for the book of Kings gives no certain method of determining the fourth year of Solomon. To secure that it would be necessary to go on down through the book of Kings, hoping somewhere to find a king who could be located through his contemporaneity with some ruler or some event known from the out side world. This was Ussher's method, and it led him to date the fourth year of Solomon at 1012 B.C., and the exodus at 1491; if now to this be added the 645 years, the result would be 2136 B.C. as the date of Abraham's call, and this would give as the real Biblical date of Abraham's life 2211-2036 B.C.This date must now be tested by the application to it of such comparisons and checks as Egypt and Babylonia may be able to furnish. It is best to begin with Egypt.
2. Egyptian Chronology: Prior to the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty Egyptian chronology provides many and complicated questions and few certainties, but from Almose L, the first
king of this dynasty about 1580 B.C. [J. H. Breasted, Hist. of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 426, New York, 1908], there is substantial agreement among Egyptologists and the error is demonstrably small in any case. It was during this dynasty that the correspondence between the kings of Egypt and various rulers and governors of western Asia occurred. (See AnrnxNn TABLETS.) The two Egyptian kings Amenophis III. and Amenophis IV. are by Breasted located at 1411-1375 and 1375-1350, and other Egyptologists would but slightly change these figures. The correspondence shows quite clearly that during these reigns Egypt was completely master of Palestine, and only during the latter are there signs of a breaking of Egyptian supremacy through the attacks of small bodies of peoples seeking new homes. Among these the Habiri find frequent mention, and efforts have been made by some scholars to identify them with the Hebrews under Joshua, but without success (see Amnxxn TABLETS, IV., § 1). They are indeed probably of the same or of a closely related stock, but they are not the Hebrews of the Old Testament. Indeed the very allusions to these marauders, the Habiri, show quite plainly that the conquest described in the summary in Judges i. was not taking place. The date of the exodus at 1491 is, therefore, shown to be impossible, for down to 1350 Egypt was still mistress of the whole territory of Canaan. If now this date be thus disposed of, one has next to ask whether any more suitable date may be discovered by the help of the Egyptians. For such a search Exodus i. 11 reports that the Israelites, before the exodus, built two store cities, Pithom and R.ameses, for the Egyptians. Now the excavations of Edouard Naville have proved that Pithom was built by Rameses II. of the next, or the nineteenth, dynasty, and the very name of the city R.ameses supports this deduction. Unless, therefore, the Hebrew historical recollections concerning these two cities are in hopeless error, it follows that Rameses II. was the Pharaoh of the oppression and his successor Merneptah the Pharaoh of the exodus (see EGYPT, L, 4, § 3). Breasted dates these two kings at 1292-1225 and 1225-1215 B.C., Petrie locates the former at 1300=1234, Maspero at 1320-1255, and Meyer 1310-1244. The differences between the experts are small, and according to these it is required to date the exodus at about 1230 instead of 1491.
If now this date be taken as a point of departure and the 645 years be added, it is necessary to locate the date of Abraham's call at 1875 B.C., and adding the seventy-five years of his life before that date, Abraham's date would be given as 1950-1775.
8. Babylonian Chronology: This date must now be tested by the data to be derived from Babylonia. Gen. xiv. 1 makes Abraham the contemporary of a certain Amraphel, king of Shinar. Schrader was the first to suggest that Amraphel was a corruption of the name of the well-known Babylonian king Hammurabi. The difficulties in this identification felt at first gradually vanished as other forms, more closely approximating the Hebrew form of the name, were found in Babylonian documents. There remained, however, a very great difficulty in bringing Hammurabi far enough down, or Abraham far
